Brotherly love: 5 must-see movies that show blood is thicker than water

Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary about The National frontman Matt Berninger and his wayward filmmaker brother Tom, arrives in UK cinemas today (June 27), and is a reminder that siblings can sometimes make for great cinema.

Whether it's the constant squabbling of Will Ferrell and John C Reilly in Step Brothers, the epic Corleone rivalry in The Godfather or Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger in On the Waterfront, brothers can make for highly-charged drama.

Digital Spy takes a look back at 5 movies about brothers - from entirely different genres - that are essential viewing for film fans.

Dead Ringers (1988)

A typically ambitious psychological thriller from David Cronenberg, Dead Ringers saw Jeremy Irons take on the role of Beverly and Elliot Mantle, identical twin brothers who work as gynecologists and share the same women.

Cronenberg milks tension from the brothers' contrasting personalities - Elliot is the more confident of the two and hands over his conquests to Beverly once he tires of them. The women never know, but when Beverly falls hard for Claire (Geneviève Bujold), things start to heat up a notch. A masterful performance from Irons powers this film, which came towards the end of Cronenberg's '80s hot streak.

Adaptation (2002)

Like the aforementioned Dead Ringers, this whip-smart comedy-drama saw one actor take on the role of twin brothers. Nicolas Cage played Charlie and Donald Kaufman, two screenwriters with vastly different personalities. Charlie (the alter-ego of the film's actual writer) neurotically wrestles with an adaptation of Susan Orlean's book The Orchid Thief, while the more confident Donald gets to work on a schlocky B-movie script that looks destined to net him million.

Cage displays his acting range in a pair of livewire performances, and this makes for a great double bill with Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman's equally meta Being John Malkovich.

Dead Man's Shoes (2004)

After taking a hit with Once Upon a Time in the Midlands, Shane Meadows rebounded with this sensational low-budget revenge thriller that played out like Death Wish in Derbyshire. When Paddy Considine's war veteran Richard returns home to find his younger brother Anthony (Toby Kebbell in a remarkable film debut) has been abused by local crooks, he sets out on a bloody revenge mission.

The set-up makes this sound fairly run-of-the-mill, but the chemistry between Considine and Kebbell is palpable, and the final-act reveal is an emotional sucker punch that stays with you long after the credits roll.

There was hardly a dry eye in the house during the charged finale to Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton's Warrior. This mixed martial arts story may have ticked off every sports movie cliché in the book, but the cast are all on superb form (Nick Nolte won an Oscar nomination for his role as the brothers' father) and director Gavin O'Connor executes it all with consummate skill.

This is also a fitting inclusion in a week that sees The National release Mistaken for Strangers: the band's songs 'Start a War' and 'About Today' feature prominently in Warrior.

Marvel movies can often fall into the trap of recycling the same elements - identikit visual styles, replicated narrative tempo/trajectory building towards a city-levelling event. However, Thor: The Dark World had a special flavor of its own thanks to the dynamic between Chris Hemsworth's God of Thunder and Tom Hiddleston's Loki.

They may be adoptive brothers who've spent much of their MCU time at each others' throats, but you can't deny there's an unshakable bond between them. You could even argue that their relationship is the most fully-realized one in Marvel's lengthy back catalog.